Son of Disgraced Former Bush White House Official Charged with Hatchet Murder

GAITHERSBURG, Md. (AP) — The 20-year-old son of a former aide to President George W. Bush was charged in a Washington, D.C., suburb on Friday, accused by police of killing a man with a hatchet.

Claude Alexander Allen III, of Gaithersburg, was arrested by Montgomery County police and online court records show he's been charged with first-degree murder.

A phone message left at the Allen household wasn't returned. A lawyer who represented the younger Allen in a prior marijuana possession case declined to comment Friday. It wasn't immediately clear if he had a new lawyer.

The killing occurred at the Gaithersburg home that property records show is owned by Allen's mother and father, Claude A. Allen.

Police say they were called to the home around midnight by a man who said he had killed someone who had tried to break into his home. Officers who arrived determined that it wasn't a break-in, and police say the younger Allen, and the victim, 25-year-old Michael Phillip Harvey, knew each other. Harvey's body was found in woods outside the home.

Police didn't immediately reveal a motive.

The elder Allen was a former domestic policy adviser in the Bush White House. He resigned in 2006 after being arrested for shoplifting at a Target store in Gaithersburg. He pleaded guilty to theft that same year, effectively ending a once-promising political career, and was fined and placed on probation.

He told the judge at his sentencing hearing that he had lost perspective while working long hours and getting little sleep in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.